Gleams of Sunlight
by Ramzes
Summary: Daenaera is now queen in all respects. She only loses the battle for her king's heart to another queen - the grief that Aegon constantly carries about him. The third installment in my Daenaera Velaryon series.


_A sequel to Shimmers of Hope and Touch of Dawn._

**Gleams of Sunlight**

She had become infatuated with him as soon she had seen him, so handsome and so big in her six-year-old eyes. One look had been enough to make her fall in love with him, or what she had thought was love.

Falling out of love with him was a much slower process, one that evolved a little more each time he rejected her tentative attempts at closeness, each time he tried to get close to her – tried being the key word. Because it never lasted long. And Daenaera was tired of disappointments.

The realization didn't come as a shattering, heartbreaking moment that left her speechless with shock and regret. It just happened overtime, descending over her little by little, the final blow striking her when she wasn't admitted to his chambers after the most glorious night she remembered since their true married life had started. Melancholy had invaded his soul once again, as it often did in the aftermath of moments when Daenaera felt that true closeness was so nearly within reach. _He's scared that he might fall in love with me_, she suddenly realized. _And that then, he might lose me._ Everything Aegon had been through made him cling to the things he had and decline accepting others out of fear. Especially when he desired them more than anything else.

"He doesn't have a mistress, at least," Rhaena once said, trying to comfort her, and the young Queen nodded. She was the only woman in Aegon's life. The only one he had ever been with, most likely. The only one he wanted, for sure. After the hesitance of the first few nights, he had become as fervent about her as she was about him, as if when being with her he made up for all the distance he put between himself and other people. But that was only in their marital bed. Daenaera would rather share him with a mistress than this mute, terrible despair, the ghosts ever attending on his steps.

And yet, while her being in love with him faded for the lack of reciprocation, her caring grew. He might be incapable of loving her the way she understood love but he cared about her as much as he could care about someone who didn't belong to the remnants of his once happy family. Sometimes, at night, after their lovemaking, she pretended to be asleep because then, he would often stay for a while. In her sleep, or what he perceived as her being asleep, he gave her all the things he couldn't give when she was awake – soft touches, whispers in her hair, warm breath against her skin when he leaned over to feel her heartbeat with his lips. He loved the children, although sometimes Daenaera wanted to scream when she witnessed his panicky refusals to hold them. Unfortunately, both boys were fascinated by their father. With Aegon present, Daenaera became just a fixture in the chamber…

"Come on," she encouraged him when Daeron stopped before him, demanding to be thrown high in the air. "Just do it."

_It isn't that hard_, she wanted to say. But it was. Aegon just didn't know how to deal with people who thought he was the sun ascending in the sky. Good thing Daenaera no longer thought so.

"Don't you care?" she asked one day after a new bout of rumours about the King's grim nature had spread. "Don't you care what your subjects think about you?"

Her husband gave her one of those looks that made her shudder. The look of one far away from such trivial matters. "No," he said, matter-of-factly. "As long as I do right by them, I don't need their love."

But he needed hers, desperately – her love that he had killed with his inability to accept it. Her compassion for the man who was trying to do right by everyone but being too scared to connect to anyone bloomed once again. He gave her all that he had to give, as insufficient as it was. And in truth, it was more than many a highborn husband gave their lady wives. They were fond of each other and they loved their children. Aegon never raised objections when she spent well beyond the limits of her allowance…

She was now with child again, growing irritable from the demands of her body, not remembering what it felt like to _not_ be with child since it was her third time in three years and trudging her miserable way through the heat of a suffocating summer that left her tired before she even woke up.

"Maybe you should send her to join us once she's passed the first three moons," Baela offered right before boarding the ship that would bring her to Oldtown. Lord Velaryon was at the Stepstones, chasing pirates away, and Rhaena was expecting her fifth child. According to what the Queen knew, she was having just as miserable time as Daenaera herself.

"Perhaps I will," Aegon replied, not willing to argue right before his sister's leaving. But Daenaera knew he'd never send her to the Hightowers' seat. He did not trust them, had been strongly against Rhaena's second match but the regents had forced their will upon him.

The news about Rhaena's state came almost immediately after the birth was over. Aegon read them to Viserys aloud. Normally, he would have read the letter to his Queen as well but he was mindful of the fact that as a woman with child herself, Daenaera might get troubled. Scared. So he shared the content of the missive with his brother only and Daenaera had to resort to eavesdropping to get a wind of what was truly going on. She had to admit that despite Baela's attempts to stay composed, her words sounded as if she was very, very scared indeed. Terrified. It looked like both Rhaena and the newborn girl were in grave danger.

"Her mother died in the birthing bed," Aegon finally spoke in a hollow voice.

"You should not harbour such thoughts," Viserys replied, to no avail, because his tone suggested that he harboured them himself.

Daenaera felt the cold fingers of panic curving around her heart, to better claim it. If Rhaena died, the world would be bereft, her calm reasoning, cheerfulness and good nature lost, her children motherless. And she could not say what Aegon would do if he lost someone he loved once again.

She would have prayed for Rhaena's health if she believed that the gods were listening to her. They hadn't when she had begged them to turn her husband's heart to her. Or maybe they had. It was not Aegon's heart that was the problem.

To her surprise, this night he came to her. She hadn't been expecting him – in the first months, she was never up to her wifely duties and he didn't actually expect it of her, so he had no reason to come. She froze in her bed, the thick tome she had deposited at her left to read while lying closing with a thud.

For a long moment, the King and Queen stood staring at each other.

"Don't send me away," he finally said. The words were ragged, as if forcing them out brought him a great physical pain.

"When have I ever?" Daenaera asked and seeing that he was still hesitant, she removed the book and lifted the covering for him. Despite the oppressive heat, at night the Maegor's Holdfast grew quite cold, so she slept with a blanket, albeit not a heavy one.

Silently, he undressed and slid in bed, not quite next to her. Bitterness choked her when she realized that even now, he was keeping his distance. But his next words brushed it all away. "Maybe you should," Aegon breathed and in those three words, she recognized everything he did not dare say, his guilt, his torment, his knowledge of the unfairness he had inflicted upon her from the very beginning because he could not help it.

"Never," Daenaera whispered back and suddenly bold, drew him closer. To her enormous relief, he came to her immediately, as if he had only been waiting for her to make the first step. She held him in loose arms, so he would not feel restrained, forced into physical proximity, or whatever the demons living in his mind demanded that he deprived himself of.

He shuddered and then, to her surprise, buried her face against her shoulder. She stroked his back and this time, he didn't flinch. Maybe he had been longing for that for a long time, unable to accept it when offered. Daenaera brushed her cheek against his soft hair. "She'll pull through this," she murmured. "You'll see."

"Yes," he replied softly. "She will."

Something in his voice, in the way he held her told Daenaera that he had come here only to hear it from _her_. But she could not quite believe it, not after all those long years. "You're cold," she muttered absent-mindedly. It was strange to pay attention to such little things when her heart was trying to leap out of her chest.

"Get me warm," he whispered, half-brokenly and half-hopefully.

Holding him tight, she did.


End file.
